The toy industry shares parents’ concern about children’s
potential exposure to toxic chemicals in our environment. Parents
should know that toys sold in the U.S. are prohibited from containing
accessible substances that are harmful or toxic and to which children
might be exposed. Laws such as the Consumer Product Safety Act,
the Federal Hazardous Substances Act, and the Consumer Product Safety
Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008 state that toys cannot contain any
accessible substances that are toxic or harmful to children. Toys must be tested by independent laboratories accredited by
the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and determined to be
in compliance with all relevant standards and regulations – including all
applicable heavy metal limits – before
they can be sold in the United States. Established test methods under
CPSIA Section 101, U.S. standard ASTM F-963 and the European
Union’s standard EN 71 Part 3 assure that toys are safe and that
children are not exposed to hazardous levels of heavy
metals.

As the CPSC Commission has confirmed, there has been consistent
improvement in toy safety measures during the past two years and toys
sold in America have never been safer. The claims made by certain
self-proclaimed advocates such as Good Guide are unclear, loosely
defined and often invalid. As an example, toys must be appropriately
subjected to migration testing for surface coatings which included lead
and other heavy metals. Good Guide used less reliable XRF testing which
is unable to distinguish between readings of accessible versus
non-accessible components of a product. [See supplemental
statement shown below]

The media has a responsibility to ensure that the information they
provide to the public about the safety of a particular toy product is
neither, false, deceptive or misleading. Misleading statements should
not be relied upon.

On August 15, 2009, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
(CPSC) issued the report of its Study on the Effectiveness, Precision,
and Reliability of X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometry and Other
Alternative Methods for Measuring Lead in Paint.

Though the August CPSC report found that XRF technology may be used
as a screening tool, the Commission indicated that XRF has not been
determined to be a reliable test method overall. CPSC staff noted
that appropriate and standard analytical methods must be developed
before a complete evaluation or determination of the technology is
possible. Until that time migration and wet chemistry testing is used
for regulatory purposes.

XRF technology can travel through a thin paint film and other
protective surface coatings. Thus, the test results are not
accurate for determining the presence of heavy metals to which a child
may be exposed or have access and may not be an indication of a
product’s safety. False results are not unusual using XRF
technology, so decisions should not be based simply on these
methods.

CPSC staff is now working with the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) to develop the needed standard reference materials
(SRMs) and with ASTM International to develop standard test methods. As
the materials and test methods become available, CPSC staff will resume
its study.

The Toy Industry Association (TIA) recognizes that XRF technology may
be suitable in certain cases for the accurate determination of lead in
toys, provided the appropriate test methods are followed and the
appropriate standard reference materials are used. Until the
necessary SRMs and test methods are developed, however, XRF analysis
should be used only as a method for evaluating whether further product
testing may be necessary under current industry testing protocols, which
require destruction of the toy and complex chemical analyses.